Why Lightspeed invested in OneAssist

Yesterday, we formally announced that Lightspeed and Sequoia invested in OneAssist, a company that creates and markets assistance and protection-oriented membership plans for consumers. OneAssist was incubated and founded in the Lightspeed offices during 2011 by Gagan Maini and Subrat Pani. We’ve known Gagan for almost five years and frequently traded views on business ideas and opportunities in the payments, loyalty and concierge space. Gagan and Subrat have known each other since the late-90s, when they worked together at the SBI-GE cards joint venture. They have each built new businesses from scratch inside larger companies – Gagan most recently started the Indian operations for CPP and Subrat built the credit cards business at Kotak – and we’re excited to back them in building a new company in this white space.

The thesis behind OneAssist is that consumers increasingly value peace of mind, convenience and assistance with respect to certain events that can disrupt or interrupt our everyday lives (such as the loss of a phone or wallet, health emergencies etc.). This is driven by: (i) increasing time scarcity – especially in double income households, (ii) a cultural preference for ‘assistance’ (witness services such as Naukri’s ‘assisted’ online job postings, where sales reps hand-hold employers through the job posting process, JustDial’s assisted directory service, IRCTC’s agent channel for booking online tickets etc), and (iii) an emerging orientation towards protecting oneself from unforeseen future events (health insurance didn’t meaningfully exist 10 years ago and is a 13,000 Cr industry now). And perhaps more anecdotally, a growing sense of taking responsibility for oneself and one’s family.

We believe there is a large opportunity to create a branded, consumer-oriented assistance and protection platform across multiple segments. The initial use cases OneAssist will support are the loss (or theft) of a wallet (including cards, driving license, PAN card etc) and the loss (or theft) of a mobile phone. In each case, the company takes on the chore of cancelling credit/debit cards (or remotely wiping and locking a phone), protecting against misuse of cards and/or data, providing emergency assistance (such as providing a replacement handset with data fully backed-up), and replacing essential identity documents such as a driving license or PAN card. Each product also offers certain group insurance benefits to protect against financial loss. Plans are priced at Rs 1,000 to 2000 per annum depending on the chosen package plan, which equates to just about Rupees 3-5 a day.

In addition to marketing directly to consumers, the company would also market their products through affinity partners (such as banks, telcos, retail, etc) and corporates who have large customer or employee bases and can offer such products as very relevant value added service or benefits for a fee.

This business model is notoriously difficult to execute against given the importance of delivering against the promise in ‘moments of truth’, the myriad of supply-chain partnerships and capabilities that must be developed and coordinated, the direct and partner-driven sales and marketing capabilities that must be built to achieve scale and the customer engagement strategies that must be deployed to ensure high customer satisfaction and loyalty. We believe that Gagan and Subrat are the best entrepreneurs to take on this challenge and wish them and their team the very best as they embark upon this adventure.